History, doctrine, culture, books

Friday Media Links to FLDS

Media liveblogging: Live from the courthouse, Day 2. With court hearings resuming in Eldorado, Texas at 9:30 a.m. this morning, it's the big story of the day — except, of course, for the visit to America of the leader of that billion-member cult whose priests have committed actual abuse against thousands of actual children [as opposed to hypothetical abuse of hypothetical children, the FLDS scenario]. It's obvious the Catholicism of the parents indoctrinated them to place excessive trust in Catholic priests, which set their kids up to become sexual victims. So, following Texas CPS reasoning [see this story], Catholic children should be removed from Catholic homes. Right?

Here are links to Friday's media stories:

"Expert testifies polygamous sect belief system is abusive" at AP. A "cult expert," no less — probably moonlights counseling UFO abductees. So is Islam an abusive sytem, Mr. Expert? Is the foster care system abusive? Is the US Government, lately making a big splash in the torture business, abusive? Is the local high school football team, which forces kids to do sometimes fatal two-a-days, an abusive system? Should Islamic kids be removed? And what is the legal standard for finding a system "abusive," as opposed to finding an individual guilty of a specifically defined crime or act of abuse? That's what the State of Texas was supposed to do at this hearing, present evidence against individuals that would justify removing that individual's minor children from their home. The only individuals I have seen named in the entire proceeding are Warren Jeffs (in jail somewhere in Utah), D. Barlow (has been in Arizona for two years), and the FLDS bishop at YFZ (who told everyone to cooperate with the Texas authorities). Hard to see how the state has given the judge any factual basis to remove any of the 416 kids.

"Saving the children is our job" by Michael Reagan. Quote: "Approximately 300,000 kids are taken out of their homes every year because of neglect and abuse, and put in foster care; [s]ome 73 percent of the children put in foster care end up on the streets, or even worse, in jail."

"Polygamist ranch probe shifts to Colorado" at CNN. Quote: "The investigation into alleged abuse at a polygamist ranch in Texas has shifted to Colorado, where police said Thursday that they have arrested a woman for making a false report to police."

Thanks for dropping in, Todd. Since the FLDS kids were hauled off to detention in Baptist buses [see this story] you actually have a dog in this fight. Let's hope the Baptist role in this whole charade is purely incidental.

Todd, do you think the name Jesus Christ would be foreign to FLDS mothers and fathers?

Have you read the Book of Mormon yet?

At any rate, ironically, I have gone on record elsewhere saying that the FLDS children would actually be better off if they converted to the Baptist sect of creedal Christianity (assuming of course that their mothers converted with them) than remaining members of the FLDS.

But that is an entirely separate issue of whether the government of the State of Texas can take the actions that it took for the reasons that it took. Ms. Voss has now testified in court that the reason the Texas CPS took the children away from the ranch after the investigation on April 3 was because the FLDS have a belief system that makes male children perpetrators in the future and female children victims in the future.

Yeah, except when he said he got most of his info about the FLDS from the media. And when he implied there was something sinister about wanting to have large families. And when he suggested that there was something wrong with the kids not being 100% inclined to cooperate with him -- seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was an agent of the Texas authorities that had removed them from their homes, separated them from their parents, and had held them in detention for days or weeks, and that whatever they told him would likely assist those authorities in their apparent plan to farm out all 416 kids to foster care. I think the kids are smarter than the psychiatrist -- at least they seem to know what's really going on.

Mormon Books 2013-14

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review